1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments relate to systems and methods for navigating content located on a computing device. More specifically, one or more embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods of navigating within a group of content items to locate content.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Computing devices (e.g., computers, tablets, and smart phones) provide users access to large amounts of content. Due to the large amount of available content, there is often a need to provide users the ability to navigate through content to experience content and/or locate specific content. Although there are a variety of conventional systems used to navigate through content, many conventional systems include a scrolling feature that allows a user to scroll through content items (e.g., social-network posts in a newsfeed). For example, a user can provide a user interaction to cause a computing device to slowly browse through content items, or alternatively, quickly scroll through a group of content items (e.g., quickly skipping over one or more content items).
Conventional systems, however, have a number of disadvantages. For example, when a user scrolls through a group of content items, conventional systems often provide the user with a content item that has no particular relevance or interest to the user. In particular, in many conventional systems, the amount of scrolling through a group of content items is only related to a characteristic of a user interaction (e.g., the distance or speed of a user's touch gesture). As a result, the content item a conventional system provides to the user in response to a user interaction is essentially random and of no particular interest to the user. Conventional systems, therefore, often cause the user to further navigate in search of a content item in which the user is interested. Navigating through content items of little interest to the user can be time consuming and frustrating for a user.
Additionally, in response to a user interaction to navigate within a group of content items, many conventional systems provide one or more incomplete or “cutoff” items (e.g., a portion of a content item is not within a viewable area of a display). In particular, due to the amount of scrolling being based solely on a user interaction, the scrolling stopping point within a conventional system is not related to any particular content item. Therefore, the scrolling stopping point may be located between two adjacent content items, causing one or more content items to be cutoff. Again, the user needs to further navigate to view the rest of the cutoff content item, which in turn diminishes the user experience.
In addition to the user disadvantages described above, conventional systems often include disadvantages for a system provider. For example, conventional systems do not allow the system provider to effectively control which content item to provide to a user when the user scrolls through a group of content items. In particular, a system provider may desire to provide advertisements that are interspersed between content items such that a user views one or more advertisements while navigating through content items. Conventional systems, however, do not allow system providers the ability to optimize the presentation of advertisements to a user in a manner that satisfies the business objectives of the system provider, while at the same time maintains a quality user experience.
Accordingly, there are a number of considerations to be made in improving user navigation through content located on a computing device.